This whole "Chancellor" story has been noise in the background for a long time. It certainly doesn't seem to want to go away. The cancelling of the MOC\killing of the Las Cristinas Project was a non-event compared to the Chancellor saga when viewed through the lens of the Venezuelan media. A few observations:
- It would appear that the politicos really do NOT want Chancellor out of jail judging by the recent new charges against him.
- Chancellor has been sounding the "corruption charge" against Rangel (connect dots #1 & #2).
- Chancellor has a grass roots following among miners, opposition leaders and now students.
- Crystallex has been portrayed as the villain, working in conjunction with the Venezuelan government to deny Chancellor his freedom against a backdrop of corruption\collusion between the multi-national and government officials.
- The resentment of transnationals is underscored by Rusoro's problems with small scall miners at Increible 6 and the recent assault on Rusoro employees by union thugs.
It looks like any announced development of Las Cristinas by a multi-national (i.e. China with or without KRY) will be met with massive street protests. I'm still waiting for a reasonable explanation of how Venezuela plans to develop Las Cristinas. Maybe there are just too many skeletons in the closet to even go there.
